Chương 26: A Place Inbetween

Treech closed the notice in his HUD. It was strange, he didn't feel afraid that he might disappear when the servers go offline. He figured that he had come to terms with death at his moment of suicide and now the only feeling he has is a slight disappointment in his heart that he wouldn't get to adventure anymore.

A time appeared on his HUD that noted the time till the update to the servers started: [00:10:00]. They only gave 10 minutes until everyone was forcefully logged out to start the update. Treech was thinking about something, but Wings interrupted his thoughts.

"Treech, my old disciple, you can hold onto this for now." Wings said as he handed [Narn-yurn] to him.

Treech nodded as it made sense for now. It was a World Class item that Wings didn't have much use for.

"Thank you." Treech took it and hung it on his belt alongside [Conqueror's Merit].

He really loved these utility belts for accessories and offhand items.

"Sensei! I will take my leave now before the update." Prince took one last bow towards his sensei. He didn't forget to give Wings a stare-down for his rudeness to Treech before leaving.

"Kuku, I will be back." Wings said as he made a pose, logging off.

Treech was now all alone in the area. He began to think about a lot of things. All his time trapped in Yggdrasil, the fun he has had competing to surpass himself. He sat down on the dirt-covered ground and dug his hands through the dirt.

'It's Ironic, I've only felt this alive after I killed myself.' Treech remembered the life he left.

The monotonous and repetitive days. The glass ceiling in his job from his birthright. Nothing in his life back then was worthwhile. But here, he felt a freedom he couldn't have before. There was no upper management preventing his promotions due to his family name. Only he, himself, was responsible for how far he could go.

Treech kept thinking about many things as the 10-minute timer final counted down to 0.

[00:00:03]

[00:00:02]

[00:00:01]

[00:00:00]

========***++++***========

=*Attention*=

You will be forcefully logged off for server maintenance.

========***++++***========

Treech felt like he was being torn in half as his surroundings started to twist and the scenery was transformed and compressed before his eyes. He mentally screamed as he felt like his entire self was being compressed and folded over himself hundreds of times. He had never felt pain inside Yggdrasil before, but this was different.

All around him, things shrunk and compressed until finally, he was floating in front of the Yggdrasil tree. All around him was space and stars, the Yggdrasil tree was clearly visible in front of him, with all 9 of the world's leaves as well. It was exactly the same as the character creation location, where you choose one of the 9 worlds.

"Ugh," Treech groaned as he mentally gathered himself. Everything around him was clear, but he was having a hard time processing the information. It took him 10 minutes before he finally recovered to the point where he could mentally function. All around him, he could hear muffled voices and after he recovered, he could finally make out what they were saying.

"Shimada-san, all players have been logged out successfully. We can start the patch."

"Great."

*The sound of keys clacking on a keyboard*

"How's your new daughter Shimada-san?"

"Haha, she is great. She is my little genius. Already, learning to walk at 1 year old."

"Wow. I wish I could have children."

"Heh"

"Did you really just laugh?"

"No that was your imagination."

Treech heard these voices which seemed to come from the very void surrounding him. He guessed these voices belonged to some people that worked for or with the development team on Yggdrasil. He realized he hadn't died during the update and felt a wave of relief cover his heart. At least he wouldn't die in regret of not seeing this game to its completion.

He looked around and found another interesting thing. He saw all the World Enemy bosses standing like lifeless figurines to the left of him. Most of them were dragons and they stood there frozen. Treech willed himself to float over there and he appeared in front of the World Enemies. He attempted to touch them, but his hand passed through them like they were a hologram.

"It seems I'm in some kind of compressed limbo. Is there anything I can do to take advantage of this situation?" Treech asked himself aloud.

He ignored the chatter of the developer's conversation that came from all around him as he thought through all his options. He glanced at the tree of Yggdrasil and at the 9 worlds. Suddenly, he had a completely abnormal idea. His heart thumped in excitement. The sheer arrogance to try what he wanted to do was inspiring.

He took out the newly obtained [Narn-Yurn] and his gaze slowly ran across the 9 world leaves on Yggdrasil. But his sight settled on his favorite world Vanaheim. He put [Narn-Yurn] on his face and quickly glanced at Vanaheim through the goggles.

========***++++***========

Vanahiem

Description: Leaf of the World Tree

[Hidden Uses: None]

[Recipies]:[None found]

========***++++***========

'As I thought... things are about to get interesting' Treech said as a mental grin stretched across his entire face in excitement.

He then activated [Narn-Yurn] on the Vanaheim leaf.

A bright light shone from Narn-Yurn and the gears spun rapidly. It scanned over the Vanaheim leaf and finished after 1 minute. Narn-Yurn then disappeared after its one use and would reappear somewhere in the Nine Worlds. Treech had Information sent to his HUD from [Narn-Yurn] as it disappeared.

"Excellent, hahaha" Treech laughed a bit crazily.

========***++++***========

Vanahiem

Description: Leaf of the World Tree

[Hidden Uses: Material Heart]

[Recipies]:[Reciepe of the World Item, Material Heart]

=*Reciepe*=

Material Heart

[Item Tier]: World Item

Recipe Description: Grandmaster Ritualist Class, 150TB of Data Value, 200,000 player lives sacrificed, Philosopher Stone of Mana, Philosopher Stone of Blood, Philosopher Stone of Qi, Dark Ritual of Making...

========***++++***========

The recipe description and further details were sent to his HUD from the Yggdrasil AI. The further he read into the details the more his heart beat faster in excitement.

"Huh? " A voice sounded from the void.

"What?"

"I thought I saw something strange happen in the update logs."

"Oh? Just search through them with QuickSearch CLI"

"Ah, well it's fine. The update is still working, right? Good enough for me."

"You are the laziest person I know, Kanno-san"

Treech heard the voices get disturbed at his actions for a moment, but thankfully they were just too lazy to check the update logs.

'This changes so many of my plans... Narn-Yurn, I will find you again.' Treech resolved in his heart to find it again. It was one of the strongest World Class Items he had seen to date. If anyone found it again, he would hunt that person down over and over again till they gave it up. It was a non-combat World-Class Item, so he half-expected some foolish people to want to trade it with other World-Class items.

'They would be incredibly foolish to trade it though.' Treech amused himself at the thought of someone actually trading the item away.

Treech then spent the next 24 hours making plans for the Dark Ritual of Making. It would be one of his most challenging ventures yet and he had so much to prepare for. He started by casting [Wish Upon A Star] in order to de-level himself. He needed to take the Ritualist class and later the Grand Ritualist to perform the ritual. He spent his wishes on something ridiculous, he wished for SP gain. He made the wishes 5 times and de-leveled himself down to Level 93. But even Treech wouldn't expect that his 5th wish would succeed and he gained 6 additional SP for free.

As he deleveled himself, he removed his SP points from his Summoner and Grand Summoner Classes, repurposing them for the Ritualist, Grand Ritualist. and Grandmaster Ritualist classes. He also tried some more experiments on the suspended World Enemies, but unfortunately, he couldn't target them with anything. He made a note that the enemies seemed immune to World Class Items as well since they didn't appear on the [Conqueror's Merit]. This could have been a result of the wire situation he was in, but he doubted it.

He was glad he used [Narn-Yurn] on Vanaheim Leaf instead of the World Enemies, as it would likely have had no effect.

Finally, 24 hours passed and he once again felt like he was compressed and folded a hundred times as the game started back up. He found himself exactly where he was in Vanaheim when the servers first went offline.

"I've got so much work to do. And a new interesting goal, hahaha" Treech laughed to himself.

He decided he would start his hunt for a valuable Dungeon for a guild territory. Everything in Yggdrasil worked off of the Data Value system. This included dungeons and clan territories. If you converted a clan territory into a guild base, it would take the territories Data Value and convert it into the Data Limit (DL) of the guild base. This means there is a maximum size of expansion for Guild bases and territories based on the territory taken.

Most guilds made their territories inside claimed dungeons due to the Data Value being naturally higher than city and terrain territories. A level 85 dungeon would have a Data Limit of 85,000,000 DL. And if the guild wanted to create extra floors to the existing dungeon, they would cost a minimum of 5,000,000 DV in resources. Thus, creating a guild territory was incredibly expensive and would consume many resources to continue improving it.

Treech was hoping for a level 95 or level 100 dungeon. And Treech wanted to find a Plant-based dungeon made from a Tree. This would give him and his guild a 95,000,000DL or 100,000,000DL for guild territory expansion. He wanted to get as much as possible, but even if that wasn't possible he could think of a few ways he could exploit the system.

'We should check the other worlds for dungeons. I don't think we can make our guild base here due to my plans.' Treech thought.

...

An hour passed before both Prince and Wings had logged back in. They met up with Treech and discussed which world they should go to next. Prince was a bit surprised to see Treech's level was now level 93 but didn't say anything since Treech always did things for a reason and he didn't always need to know.

Wings was a bit confused about why Treech used [Narn-Yurn] already after he explained he had used it. Wings had decided to join them, but he would still feel upset about Treech using it without asking him. Treech apologized for using it and promised that it was being used for the betterment of the guild.

Wings forgave Treech after his apology, but in compensation, he asked Treech to let him be the guild master and design the guild weapon.

Treech couldn't let Wings be the Guild master because he knew this 8th-grade syndrome weirdo wouldn't be able to handle the management that came with the position. Wings also agreed when Treech told him about the management requirments, he didn't want to manage anything. So he backed down on that request, only settling on being able to design the guild weapon.

"Kuku, my right arm aches." Wings clutched his arm.

Treech cringed at the thought of their future guild weapon. He added a rule for Wings that the weapon had to be useful! To be honest, Treech didn't really care at all about the guild weapon. It would pale in comparison to what he was currently planning. If he had to give up the guild weapon design rights to repay Wings he had no problem with that. He could always make a weapon that far surpassed the Data Limit of guild weapons due to his racial ability [World Mutation]. The only thing that was unique about Guild Weapons was their DL, other than that they were normal items. Most guilds would never even use their Guild Weapon directly because durability damaging spells and techniques could directly shatter it.

A guild weapon mostly was never used or was designed to create summons and then hidden away.

After 7 days of discussion, planning, and leveling Treech was back to level 100 and Jet-Black Wings also reached 100. They were now prepared to find a dungeon territory worthy of [Dark Renuion]. Their first destination, Helheim, is to search for a worthy dungeon.

(Author's Note: Okay, so this chapter was pretty lit. Laying the groundwork for an epic moment in the future.)

(Author's Note: I know some of you will complain like children about Wings designing the guild weapon, but too bad. I'm the captain now, heh.)